asterion*
It is not the stars shattering around them, or Thana’s teeth at his neck, or standing in a dark world that seemed either the beginning of all things or the end of them that Asterion thought of, over and over, as he walked down the echoing halls of the Night Court castle to Moira’s door. It is what the unicorn had said when he asked how long he’d been gone: A year.
A year.
It is too long. Too long to be forgiven, too long to expect her to have hung on in hopeless despair. And yet he has to say he’s sorry - so terribly sorry. And yet he still hopes, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Asterion remembers standing in jungle with sunlight searing golden through the leaves and a hundred birds with jewels for eyes singing and singing, and Moira telling him (her breath warm on his shoulder, his neck) Can’t we stay here together, forever? I’d go where you go.
But he had gone without her, somewhere she could never follow. And Florentine’s dagger had broken at that ravenous crux of magic and time, and they had been stuck with the door between worlds shut between them -
He pauses in the hallway, breathes deeply of the faint tang of the sea and the sweet smell of jasmine flowers. The once-king closes his eyes for a heartbeat or two, and pushes all those clawing feelings down and down. Nothing is the same as it was - the faces he passes in the castle, the banners hung in the city outside. He cannot expect her feelings to have remained, and yet he doesn’t want to brace for her anger. He only wants to see her.
Pulling in a breath, Asterion walks the rest of the way to the Emissary’s quarters. Softly he knocks, saying nothing, his heart a hummingbird in his throat, his stomach a tangle of nerves and guilt. As he waits he glances down, at the basket he’d brought of lilies and sweet rolls, as if such gifts could make up for anything.
Only when the door begins to open does he look up.
@
